Rumor is we are getting snow near my house soon. It was suppost to start today but I haven’t seen a single white fleck so I offer you a Shammy picture from the Sapporo Snow Festival. I lived in Iowa for a bit as a kid so I have been around snow before but that was the MOST snow I had ever seen, I swear the drifts in some parts were 6 feet high! Shammy enjoyed posing by this neat snow building but unfortunately my camera’s battery was low at the time so I didn’t get too many pictures.

On the knitting front I have sent my swap project out and will post pictures once I am sure it has arrived. I am almost finished with my Södera Socks and I am delaying on the last part of my myrtle leaf scarf because it involves figuring out how to attach a lace border which I dont want to figure out yet.

Have you ever been drawn to something and you really don’t know why but you just know you have to have it. That was me with this silver yarn. I don’t know what caused me it get it I usually shy away from fun fur like stuff. Maybe it was a “ohhhh shiny” reaction but when I saw this yarn when I was in Japan I knew I had to have it. I decided I was going to make a muff for my sister, thankfully I wised up and didn’t give it to her I don’t this she would have got the humor in it. For some reason today I looked at this picture and remembered that I actually finished this back in ’06 I just never took a picture. So I have decided that as soon as I find the muff again after my stuff arrives here I will give it the picture that this silver fuzzy yarn deserves and find a place where I can totally rock wearing a muff!

A friend I have known since 5th grade is about to get married so I knew I needed to whip up something for a shower present. She is about to go to school again so I thought ah ha a bookmark would be good.

I was able to use some of my stash yarn and quickly wipped up this Fan Bookmark. It is a really pretty pattern and I think I am going to have to make myself a scarf version like so many I have seen on ravelry. I also couldnt stop with just a bookmark, not for someone I have known since 5th grade. I took all the pictures I had of her (yearbooks, girlscouts, etc) scaned and put them in a pattern and I covered the box the presents were in ( I also gave her a foot care kit) The box was a hit, I don’t think many of her friends had seen such old pictures of her and I had some good embarrassing ones.

Recently when I needed a small crochet hook my mom produced this collection of antique hooks from my grandmother Mimi. They are all in really good shape, the only problem is that I think they are labeled with an old way of sizing because the numbers don’t make sense to me. I think I am going to have to do some research into crochet hook sizing. I also was told that I now will have the task of finishing some doilies my grandmother never finished. Evidently my mom deemed my skills up to par, hopefully my stuff will blend in with the old stuff.

In other news I cut my hair and managed to get some good pictures today. I have been planning this haircut for awhile and I am pretty happy with it.

Though since I have never not a “unatural” color before I was getting blue everywhere the first few days. Thank goodness for Mr. Clean magic erasers.

On a recent trip to San Francisco Shammy and I visited Japantown and Shammy took a quick pic by the concrete pagoda. Shammy has done this very pose for more traditional pagoda’s in Kyoto but he liked this one just the same.

With the success of the first hat another was requested for my dad. He is bald and he has decided that my hats keep his head warmer than the rest. The thought of him wearing only one hat, and thus smelling up only one hat disterbed my mom greatly so a second hat was started with the leftover yarn. This time I knit 4in before starting the decreasing instead of the 5in the pattern calls for. This fits the way my dad wear the hat better. My mom has requested that I make more and I think I have enough yarn leftover for two more, perhaps one in plain blue and one in plain red. Also the yarn, Plymouth Yarn Encore Worsted, does what it says it is superwash. We washed the first hat and there may have been a little felting but none that I could really see.

In honor of the election I bring to you Shammy with something completely American, overseas. This is from Kure Japan. Most of the KFC’s in Japan have this friendly Colonel Sanders statue standing outside, I haven’t seen him in other countries yet but I think he is pretty cute.

Shammy posed on this post one day while visiting the Manama Souq in Bahrain. We were trying to rescue a friends shirt from the tailor. I say rescue in that he had been told it would be done on Sunday, and when he went there he was told it would be done on Tuesday and when we showed up on Wednesday it was still not done. Unfortunately we also showed up during the mid day nap time, kinda like a siesta, between 1-4pm the souq closes. Eventually our friend did get his shirt back but he never used that tailor again.

Well this summer I entered two photo contests, the Knitty Calander and Summer of Socks socks on vacation. Sadly I did not win either of them 😦 I did get honorable mention for Knitty so that is pretty cool, and I might as well show off the pictures because I think they are really great. HP took them, I posed while Harris scoped out locations.

For the Knitty contest we went to the old Portuguese fort in Bahrain. We tried to get there early so it wouldn’t be too hot, but this was in Aug and in Aug in Bahrain it never cools down.

I told my helpers that I would buy them lunch to make up for the heat and getting up so early, they got tired of it pretty fast but we still got ALOT of pictures! These are just some of the best.

For the socks on vacation we went to the Tree of Life, I figured since I was in Bahrain at the time we might as well take advantage of the exotic location.

I am happy with my pictures, too bad I didn’t win anything but maybe next year.